[SDCBC] all road users need education

[Serge Issakov]

On 2/12/07, John Forester <forester at johnforester.com> wrote:
>
>
> We have plenty of evidence of both the power of the public emotion
> against vehicular cycling and of the means of overcoming that emotion
> in individuals. The means of overcoming that cyclist inferiority
> phobia are repeated successful exposure to real traffic of gradually
> increasing intensity. A useful first step in such acclimatization is
> the video work of Dan and Brian, which can be viewed in a
> non-threatening environment, but it has to be followed by success in
> cycling in real traffic.


There are plenty of cyclists who cycle successfully, relatively speaking,
in real traffic, but still don't seem to be "acclimatized".  As an example,
consider Michael Clarke, the KFI manager recently featured in the NBC
news story,

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbeDxOHfT68

This guy commutes some 34 miles per day in LA traffic.  By
most any reasonable measure, he is an "experienced" traffic cyclist.
But the clips show him riding far to the right (certainly as compared to the
clips shown by Dan and Brian), we know he has been hit at least once,
and his words reveal a strong sense of inferiority while he is out there.

I don't mean to pick on Mr. Clarke, but I believe he is a fairly typical
example
of a very common type of cyclist: he doesn't make the gross errors of riding
on
the wrong side, riding at night without proper lights and reflectors, riding
on sidewalks,
blowing through red lights, etc., but he still doesn't act like a (slow
moving) vehicle driver
when he is out there, particularly not in terms of negotiating for ROW and
controlling
lanes when they are too narrow to be shared, when approaching intersections,
etc.
In fact, very few cyclists seem to do that.  How do we popularize this more
assertive,
safer and more rewarding form of "integrated cycling", as exemplified by the
work of
Dan and Brian, within the community of "experienced" cyclists?  As far as I
can tell,
for the most part, these are not the folks signing up for LAB courses, and,
much of what
is covered in those classes they already know.  Plus, they think doing
anything much
different from what they already do  is "crazy" and/or "asking for it".
They believe
the problem is the motorists and favor bike lanes as reprieve that gives
them space
that they don't have to fight for.   They believe most if not all of the
problems that they
have, be they close calls or actual hits, are par for the course, something
that is
inevitable.  How to reach them?  How to get through to them?

Serge
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